


Der Letzte Tanz

by lustig



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze, French History RPF, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Caretaking, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-27 21:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20052697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lustig/pseuds/lustig
Summary: Death only ever came to visit when Richelieu was alone and close to breaking.





	Der Letzte Tanz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweattea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweattea/gifts).

> For sweattea, who fell in love with the German musical Elisabeth and thought Richelieu and Death would make a lovely couple, with his messed-up mental health, and I couldn't help but agree.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely liadt!

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” a melodic voice greeted him and Richelieu whirled around, eyes wide and panicked. He had looked for an empty room, a place to crumble in peace, unobserved, undetected, undisturbed.

He had thought he had succeeded.

When he recognised the solemn face, never-aging, eternally beautiful and connected it to the voice he used to know so well, he realised he had succeeded.

In a way.

Death never appeared when there were other people around, after all. Richelieu had long since accepted that he would die alone, one day.

“No!” he breathed and looked back to the door, already closed, his hand twitched upwards, gloves already removed.

The pain was a pleasant distraction and his eyelids fluttered shut, while his eyes rolled back. The trembling receded a little, until it was stilled completely, by the soft, soothing touch of Death’s own hands.

Richelieu’s eyes snapped open again, into the waiting gaze of the other – man? Entity? Hallucination? – just a fraction taller than himself. He whimpered, helpless, lost, and Death smiled.

It wasn’t a mocking grin. Richelieu had seen the mocking sneer.

It was the smile of someone welcoming him home.

He couldn’t help but whimper again, trying to extract his hands from Death’s grip. The smile fell, but Death let him go, his hands still opened in an offer, a plea.

“I missed you,” the Black Prince said quietly. “Why did you remove yourself from my companionship?”

Without Death’s touch grounding him, the trembling took over again, spreading from his hands to the rest of his body. Richelieu stumbled backwards, until his legs hit something that might have been a chair, a desk, a table, he didn’t care.

“Louis,” he stuttered, “France. _Mon Roi_.” He bit his fingers again, agitatedly waiting for Death to come closer.

He never did.

His mouth tasted like copper.

“I am important to his Majesty,” Richelieu tried again, when his companion didn’t _do_ anything except silently stare at the Cardinal.

“Are you?” the quiet reply finally came, “Are you _really_?” Death came one step closer, but stopped and raised his hands in a peaceful surrender when Richelieu twitched in panic, for he couldn’t retreat further back.

“If you were to lay down your duties as First Minister today, would he even blink? Would he even care?”

Richelieu’s wail was one of pure agony, and he crumbled, a heap of red silk in some back room of the Louvre. Silent sobs shook his shoulders, and the only sound in the room was a high-pitched, breathless whine.

Death didn’t make any noise when he moved and upon his soft touch on Richelieu’s shoulder, the other man tried to scramble sideways, half falling over in his attempt to get away, the silk holding him mercilessly in place.

“Shh,” the Black Prince soothed him, stroking away the tears on one cheek. When he realised Richelieu had no further inclination to move, for the moment, he touched the soft grey strands, too.

“How beautiful you are,” Death continued, voice no more than a whisper, “with your eyes like fire and your hair like spun silver. How I yearned to see you again, finally claim you for the eternity at my side you are destined for.”

He leaned in closer, their foreheads touching. Richelieu’s sobs stilled, and he pressed his head against the other man.

“France needs me,” he tried, once again, his voice so brittle he wasn’t able to believe those words himself anymore. “France needs me,” he whispered brokenly and closed his eyes.

Death’s breath ghosted over his lips, but he didn’t close the distance between them, not yet.

“Haven’t you already given France more than she deserves? Your life, your brilliant mind, your _love_? Don’t I deserve it, too?” His hand stroked over the pale cheeks of the Cardinal, soothing, questioning, offering. “How often has she turned on you, for all the good you’ve done her? How often has she spit on your sacrifices, laughed at your offerings, trampled on your hopes and wishes?

“How often has your precious king sneered at you and your ideas; refused all the good you could bring to his reign? How long until they decide you’ve done enough? You saw what they did to Concini when they decided _he_ had done his duty to France? No, don’t cry, beautiful.”

Death pulled him closer, pressed his head into the crook of his neck and rubbed small circles in his back.

“You deserve some rest, Armand. You deserve to make decisions for yourself, not for a greater good that everyone tries to shove away.”

A kiss, pressed to the top of the silver strands.

“I won’t abandon you. I will never, ever, abandon you. You are too precious to be treated the way you are. You deserve so much better. Please,“ Death’s voice was so low it was barely more than a whisper, “Please, come with me. There is nothing here to hold you back.”

And Richelieu turned his head, just a fraction, then another, out of the crook and towards that soft voice, promising freedom.

The door opened.

Death’s retreat was so fast that Richelieu, suddenly bereft of his only support, lost the little balance he had left. His bared, bloodied fingers connected with the ground, the pain rendering his body immobile. He keened, in despair, in loss, in desire.

“Cardinal!” exclaimed a voice, the last voice he wanted to hear right now – _he only wanted to hear Death, sweet melody, sweet freedom, sweet release_.

He wanted to die.

~*~

“Cardinal!”

Relief rushed through Treville’s body, mixing with the adrenaline in his veins, when he saw the crumbled heap of red silk on the ground. He kneeled down, taking one of the hands – God, the _state_ they were in – and waited until he could feel the fluttering pulse, weak but there, which was all he needed for the moment.

Then he looked up, scanning the room for the figure in black that had extracted himself the moment he had opened that door. But he had met Death on too many battlefields, had looked him in the eyes more than once.

He knew what he had seen. He knew what it meant. How close he had been.

He gathered the Cardinal in his arms, pulled him into an upright position and felt worry coursing through him when the First Minister didn’t even make a sound in protest. Richelieu was alive, but, God, at what price?

“I know you’re here,” he spoke into the seemingly empty room.

“Jean Treville.” Out of nothingness, or maybe a shadow, the black figure stepped back into his view. He was taller than Treville remembered. Whenever he had seen him before, Death had looked to be about the same height as himself, maybe just a little bit taller.

Now Death was clearly towering above the Captain, and not only because he was still kneeling on the ground.

Death was staring at him, an angry sneer on his face, with hollow cheeks, pale skin and dark, burning eyes. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to see a skull there, instead of the usual ethereal beauty Death liked to appear in.

Treville searched the eyes of the Black Prince and ordered, very calmly: “Stay away from him.”

Death barked a laugh, stepped closer, his gaze like fire.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be, Jean Treville.”

“I’ve seen too many good men fall into your embrace. I’ve seen the terror you sow. The destruction that follows your wake. I will not cower before you.”

Death stepped closer still, his gait like a dance to a melody only he could perceive.

“And his time hasn’t come yet,” Treville concluded quietly, still not letting go of the unmoving man in his arms.

“He asked for the embrace,” Death stated coldly, cruelly, the anger of being bereft of the Cardinal’s companionship marring his features.

“France still needs him.”

“France has _nothing_ to offer to him! The country hates him, both the nobility and the common people. They hate and fear him, and want to see him dead more days than they want him _alive_. I can offer him the freedom he needs to heal his broken mind!”

“If he left France now, all that he has worked for, all the worth he has given his life, himself, would crumble. France doesn’t treat him like he deserves, maybe no one does, but without him, we would be _nothing_. And there are people out there who know that.”

Treville pulled the unresponsive body of the Cardinal closer, instinctively trying to shield him from the threat he saw in Death.

“He yearns for me.”

“No,” Treville replied, “Not all the time. And if he abandoned France now, he’d never be able to forgive himself.”

Death’s dance had calmed down a little, though he still looked furious. Instead of replying, he simply kept staring at the Captain with a cold, calculating gaze. It made Treville uneasy, up to the point where he continued, unable to stop himself: “If he is destined for eternity by your side, would a few more years of separation make any difference?”

Treville grimaced, but refused to take the words back.

They were the truth, after all.

“You love him.”

Pained, controlling his breathing, the Captain closed his eyes.

“I do,” he admitted, quietly, “but he can never know.”

The expression on Death’s face changed. “Why?”

“Because he despises me. And his heart has always belonged to someone else.” A measured exhale. “I don’t want him to know.”

Death’s gaze was unreadable, but the fury was gone, and he slowly stepped back from the two people on the ground.

“Then he won’t know. He’ll wake up and, to him, all this will have been a dream, nothing of it real. I trust you can make the right people find him?” The Black Prince raised an eyebrow, waiting for Treville’s answer.

Numb, shocked, speechless, he could only nod.

Death promised freedom. But the Captain had forgotten, he also stood for justice.

“He is yours, then. I will not come back for him before his time is due.” The shadows in the room seemed to grow darker, longer, embracing Death as one of their own. “His last dance will be mine.”

And like a ghost, he dissipated, leaving only sunlight in his wake.


End file.
